Unless we're talking about an Andy Falkous project (like Mcklusky, or Future of the Left), you could safely assume a song called "Bad Bands" has a sense of self-referential jokiness. Such is the case with the track from Capgun Coup's second album, Maudlin-- wherein lead singer Sam Martin claims his favorite bands are bad ones, because they "bang like pots and pans" and "will be your friends." Good bands, on the other hand-- no soul, killing rock'n'roll.
With that sort of pissy juvenilia, this record has to be called Maudlin for a reason, right? Capgun Coup are not quite as overt about arrested development as Team Love's most well-known act (Tilly and the Wall), but they're not particularly sold on the idea of growing up, as bullshit like employment and relationships are viewed as obstacles or, more often, reasons to get absolutely blotto. Over a Dylan-ized juke joint, "Sitting on the Sidewalk" finds Martin "blackout fucking loaded" while rattling off life's cruel, fleeting vicissitudes. "Got a Lot of Gaul" features an anarchic fuck-everything/fuck-me rejection of social structure. The title of "When I'm Gone" belies its narrative: Martin is physically present, but an assortment of chemicals and heartbreak has him way the fuck off the grid.
Brutal stuff, but often kind of hard to hear under the plug-and-play mic'ing of Martin's vocals. It adds another layer of slapdash to the affair, though it can skew a bit toward seeming like an affectation. While the words themselves are of the here-and-now, Capgun Coup take refuge in the past several decades of rebel music, which subtly covers a lot of ground. "Pretty City" is about as good of an approximation of the Strokes' Is This It as you're liable to hear these days. "Fishlip" introduces a prickly surprise of a surf instrumental-- it's not so much a palette cleanser as a bracing shot-- while "For Fish" contrasts Mellotron and fuzzed-out acoustics for a curiously tasting textural mix.
It's a rare find on an album that forgoes any sort of ambition in favor of grotty, two-chord garage that gets by more on enthusiasm than inventiveness. Everything about Maudlin, from its cover to its attitude, is as much about artifice and substance as a slice of 2 a.m. pizza-- enjoyable, sorta forgettable, but ultimately best after a half-dozen beers.
